“I reckon you mean yourself and me,” said Abe smiling.
The boy’s grave, thin face brightened up as he said this in a humorous tone.
“Then I ought to be considered a woman if you two are goin’ to set up as men,” said Nancy. “But Dennis is right. It’ll be good for us if she’s the right sort. Some step-mothers ain’t.”
“I reckon you’re right,” said Abe again.
“I’m afraid she won’t like the house,” said Nancy. “It ain’t as good as it might be, though it’s better than the ‘camp’ we used to live in.”
As she spoke her eyes turned toward an even more primitive dwelling forty yards away. It was known as “a half-faced camp,” and was merely a cabin enclosed on three sides and open on the fourth; built not of logs, but of poles. It was fourteen feet square, and without a floor. Here it was that the elder Lincoln lived with his family when first he settled down in the Indiana wilderness after his removal from Kentucky. The present dwelling was an improvement on the first, but how far it was from being comfortable may be judged from a description.
It was indeed a cabin, while the other had been only a camp, but it had neither floor, door, nor window. There was a doorway for an entrance, but there was nothing to keep out intruders. There was small temptation, however, for the professional burglar. The possessions of the Lincolns were altogether beneath the notice of even the poorest tramp. A few three-legged stools served for chairs. In one corner of the cabin was an extemporized bedstead made of poles stuck in the cracks of the logs, while the other end rested in the crotch of a forked stick sunk in the earthen floor. A bag of leaves covered with skins and old petticoats rested on some boards laid over the poles. Here had slept the elder Lincoln and his wife, while Abe laid himself down in the loft above. A hewed puncheon supported by four legs served for a table. A few dishes of pewter and tin completed the list of furniture.
This was the home to which Thomas Lincoln was bringing his new wife. She was a widow from Elizabethtown in Kentucky, where he had formerly lived. She was an old flame of Mr. Lincoln, but had rejected him, being able, as she thought, to do better. But when within a few years he became a widower and she a widow, the suit was renewed and the answer was favorable.
Even now the married pair are on their way home.
Mrs. Johnston considered herself a poor widow, but she was much better off than the man she had just married. She was the owner of a bureau that cost forty dollars; this alone being a value far greater than her new husband’s entire stock of furniture. Other articles, too, she had, including a table, a set of chairs, a large clothes chest, cooking utensils, knives, forks, bedding, and other articles.